TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: It was good helpful for me to talk about my childhood, kind of, experience with the well-off kids. I don’t know. I guess I mean I felt like I had all the [inaudible] resolved in my head earlier [inaudible] how kids can be mean and this and that, but I guess the emotional impact is something else. And I can rationalize it and say kids can be mean and they were insecure or whatever, that’s why they treated me that way. [00:02:05.19] But I mean I was aware of that even as I was going through it, to the extent that I could have been when I was 11. My mom saw it I guess. She was like yes, this girl’s mom doesn’t really love her so that’s why she’s troubled. So I understood that rationally but like the emotional impact of it just kind of it was resided with me somewhere. And now when I do certain things or feel a certain way I think the power imbalance that I feel may be some part of me I feel like is reaching out to that experience and kind of, I don’t know, feeling badly. Does that happen or even when you rationalize something and you accept it and you see it in a rational way, there’s still the negative it affects you negatively despite that. [00:03:16.02]

THERAPIST: It sounds like that happened is happening to you.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: So I’m very I always get a little confused when this happens. You said you’ll say this is what’s happening to me; does that happen?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: I mean yes, the answer’s yes, but I don’t really understand that.

CLIENT: What do you mean you don’t understand?

THERAPIST: Well you’ll say that this is how I feel, do people feel that way. Well you feel that way, so I guess there’s like the question is probably more complicated than it seems. (pause)

CLIENT: I guess I’m looking for feedback. [00:04:16.26] Am I making sense?

THERAPIST: Is it more than that? (pause)

CLIENT: Or guidance.

THERAPIST: Somehow you’re checking in.

CLIENT: Yeah, the need for approval. I don’t know. Maybe not. Yeah. I mean yeah. (pause) And then [inaudible] I feel the need for approval, or if not approval, then maybe like acceptance. [00:06:14.03] Acceptance might be more level [ph] I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I don’t interact with my mom in this manner as much. Maybe I should more. So I don’t turn other people into sources of approval. I guess it’s happened before, the emotional [inaudible] certain thing remains despite me having rationalized it and said okay, that’s taken care of. [00:07:12.29] That’s not going to bother me, is I know the rational [inaudible] but that doesn’t really work out that way I guess. (pause) It’s more like power by association thing is not it’s going to be it’s going to take me a while to understand it, I think, and come to terms with it and feel it in a healthy way. Power can be abused so much. [00:08:00.22] Maybe in itself it’s not bad, but then if you are insecure then [inaudible] abuse it. Yeah, I mean that’s been like the hardest thing, I guess, with Chris, [ph] and I guess that ties into the other piece we were talking about me [inaudible] people who put me down. And that’s not necessarily like I guess that’s like a gray zone right now in my head because I don’t know if I like [inaudible] accept consciously but I think other people put me down. I’m thinking of people who are smarter. Not necessarily smarter than me, but are smart or have more than me, whatever it is. [00:09:06.27] More confidence and whatever. But I guess that’s been my mode since I graduated college. I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it in this way at all so now I have to think. I think that’s where I we ended last time, was it? On Wednesday. Wasn’t I thinking of how I met Chris and stuff? I mean I had this gigantic fear that I just cannot learn otherwise or get better or improve, specifically in the area of intellectual growth. [00:10:12.09] I don’t really well I don’t I mean in wanting to be an artist and trying to be an artist I mean and obviously there’s I feel like there’s so much that I need to do, and when I decided to pursue that I was reading a lot because I wasn’t an English major. I didn’t read. I didn’t have as much reading then as I feel like an English major would have, so I’m still catching up with that. And in terms of being socially conscious and being political, now I feel like I have more of like a community that’ll help me be this way. [00:11:07.14] But I feel like it’s really it really has been being with Chris has really had a deep impact on in this area, in developing my thinking and learning how to be curious about everything and but since he wasn’t just a friend there were all these other emotions attached. So I guess I felt the power in that, and then at some point I learned to rebel. And I felt better at some other point and so I desperately wanted to be my own person, do my own thinking in my own way. But I mean so yeah, I feel like I would say I sought him out because he was very intelligent and very curious, always thinking and always thinking in a unique way. [00:12:20.19] I used to think like when I first met him I used to think and definitely remember thinking I could be I could go anywhere with this guy and I would no longer feel depressed. That wasn’t that didn’t hold true for even a year though. I remember thinking I could go we could be sitting in McDonald’s and it would be fine. And then I moved to a completely new town with him. [00:13:03.02] We moved from Virginia to Cambridge and lived together, and I was very depressed because I didn’t have anything to do. Like he was starting a PhD program and I didn’t have anything to do there in that town. I don’t know if you’ve been to Cambridge but...

THERAPIST: Not really.

CLIENT: Yeah, it’s like a college town. There are five colleges there. And unless you’re part of that, [inaudible] thing to do there. So I was like working at a bookstore for a little bit and then little things like that. I applied to like graduate school and then got in, but I deferred so I could go stay with him. And then I was like this is this sucks. [00:14:07.14] So then I went and accepted my admission and I moved to Ohio and [inaudible] my own study. But that was a weird time. That decision to move with him came about like in a weird way, I feel like, because the summer before his parents had were visiting from India, and I met them for the first time here in the U.S. And at that time they were going through some financial difficulties and I don’t know. I don’t know why this wasn’t up for debate but I was telling them yeah, I want to be an artist and I just got accepted to Columbia and I’m going to go and study there. I don’t know what I’m going to do with the degree. It’s very expensive and I have to take out loans. And his mom was like very well she’d just met me, so I feel like I guess she wasn’t very, I don’t want to say, supportive, but she was probably like confused. [00:15:20.02] So she said to me, art is a luxury. And I don’t know why I took it in a negative way, but I did, and it remained with me. And I hated her for saying that. So I felt very discouraged. And I guess I’ve had some distance from that time now so I can kind of say or rationalize, you know. They were going through a tough time. They didn’t know me. They’re not very emotional. They’re very stable people, like staid almost. But at that time I was very upset by that and it affected me so much that I had to forward my aggression, and I moved with their son to live with him. [00:16:12.11] I mean I guess they scared me.

THERAPIST: How?

CLIENT: I don’t know. I wasn’t really with it. I didn’t really have like a path or anything. I had graduated college and I was actually thinking of getting a masters in computer science. That was my background so I thought I’d get a masters. I think I had I mean I got in to school and but then I deferred that admission too. I think that was right when my parents were splitting up so that was a very traumatic time anyway. And then my ex-boyfriend had moved out of state for a job and I got a job myself, which I was terrified of. [00:17:09.23] I had such panic attacks just sitting at the desk there and really not wanting to go to work and [inaudible] were intense. But I don’t know. Somehow I kept with it for a year. And I think it was during that time I met Chris. And we would have such intellectual conversations. And I wanted to be an artist so I applied and he was applying to graduate schools, too, and so I guess I also applied with him to [inaudible] I mean I didn’t really clearly know what I was doing in that sense but I guess I had a vague idea. [00:18:06.03] I think it was that and that I was also getting therapy. But it didn’t really work out. I think they put me on medicine too. I can’t remember which medicine it was. Zoloft or Prozac or something. For a bit.

THERAPIST: It didn’t work out in what sense?

CLIENT: The woman said nothing. I was with her for, I don’t know, a few months, maybe a year. She never said anything. And I just was I can’t even remember the therapy sessions now.

THERAPIST: That’s too bad.

CLIENT: Yeah, it really didn’t do anything. [00:19:02.10] Confused me more, I feel like. Plus, maybe I was too young or inexperienced.

THERAPIST: Why would you take that on yourself?

CLIENT: I don’t know. I don’t want to say anything bad about therapists. I feel like it’s growth, part of growth, right, to take responsibility.

THERAPIST: I guess there’s responsibility and then there’s blame.

CLIENT: Yeah, I think I feel like I’ve been blaming a lot. I’ve been doing a lot of blaming the past few years. [00:20:03.18] So I am conscious of that. Yeah, even in the scenario where Chris’s parents scared me, whatever, I do feel like I could’ve done something about it. I could’ve been stronger but I wasn’t so plus I really wanted them to like me, especially his mom, and she’s a very, very strong personality. So I guess I just got, I don’t know, weirdly dominated without even me knowing it. So I yeah, that’s what I ended up doing that year. And then really being very miserable. [00:21:02.26] It’s like it’s funny, this thing I do this thing, and I’m becoming conscious of it, and I think it’s very helpful to be conscious of it, that I look back on a certain time and I hate it. And I hate everything about it. But only recently now that I’m aware that I do this I’m like okay, so that year, just because I was miserable and that whole thing was bad doesn’t mean that Chris is bad, and my relationship with him was always bad, and I should never be with him. Because even though I was sad and depressed and had nothing to do, I think we had a decent time together doing certain things. But when I feel badly about it, I think back and I just hate everything about it. I don’t know how else to describe it or think about it. [00:22:10.10] But I feel like I should take ownership of that and be like well, that was my decision to move with him. I had just met him and I really I felt so intensely for him and he was I felt like I could get a lot out of being with him and perhaps I guess I did. I don’t truly know how to measure that. Maybe it’s not important to measure it, (pause) but I don’t know. [00:23:12.27] I guess sometimes I think that what if I hadn’t followed him. What if I was a stronger person or could’ve become stronger? Would I have how what would I be like right now? Maybe it’s pointless to think that way, but I think sometimes of feeling more confident about myself and having my own thinking. I guess that’s what I feel, like do I when I give up my independence and lean on him, do I become a better person? Do I learn more? Or is that like a tradeoff? Like being with him equals learning more versus not being with him but being confident but not learning as much. [00:24:13.02] You know what I mean?

THERAPIST: You’re putting them in the same category?

CLIENT: No, I’m like I feel like there’s that dichotomy.

THERAPIST: Right. But is learning more meaning being less confident?

CLIENT: Yeah, because then it would be through him that I learned it not on my own.

THERAPIST: What does learning something on your own look like?

CLIENT: Going to school, learning it through anywhere but him. Doing my own research, doing my own thinking, making my own argument.

THERAPIST: Aren’t you doing your own thinking when you talk with him? [00:25:10.03]

CLIENT: Yeah, a little.

THERAPIST: You feel like you just absorb.

CLIENT: I don’t know. I’d have to think about that. I have no idea. (pause) I’m scared to think about this.

THERAPIST: Scared about?

CLIENT: I don’t know. It’s [inaudible] I’ll try. I don’t know. [00:26:04.09] I feel like I was so raw, so green, like so uncultured before I met him. Maybe I wasn’t. I don’t know. I really don’t know.

THERAPIST: But it seems like there’s something almost embarrassing about it.

CLIENT: There is, there is. I don’t know what or why. I almost want to make a list now, like how much should I really know on my own and before I met him. I mean I have picked up French literature on my own. I picked up Proust. I bought a lot of books on my own. I had read a lot of the stuff that’s near and dear to me now. [00:27:04.27] But oh God, this is so bad. I don’t want to do this. It’s like divorce or I don’t know. It’s something like that. I remember one moment he was talking about Borges and I was like yeah, I had no idea if I had actually even heard of Borges’ name before Chris. But I remember clearly going to Barnes and Noble on my lunch break, buying a copy of his collected poems, and roughing it up a bit and putting it into my on my bookshelf so that that evening when he came over he could see that I already read Borges.

THERAPIST: You wanted to impress him? [00:28:09.22]

CLIENT: Yeah. But I mean I think he’s my favorite poet but Chris likes him [inaudible] so there is this exchange but it wasn’t so much mutual. I don’t know. I feel like maybe I was never able to hold my own or I was just I lacked confidence and maybe kept losing it because of not being assertive. And I understand that we have very different modes of understanding. I’m very emotional and I understand things through emotion, through empathy. And he’s very cerebral so but there is already, because of forces beyond our control, there’s the power and balance. And even that, it’s considered loftier to be cerebral than to be emotional. [00:29:11.28]

THERAPIST: Says you.

CLIENT: Says me? Yeah, but I don’t know. I feel like that, and other people say it too. Anyway, so and we were hanging out and I’ve met his friends. This is like the first year we were going out. And then I met Victor. [ph] I mean that year, way back when. And the three of us would watch all these really interesting all this really interesting cinema together. And that was also that opened my eyes to good art. So I feel like I give Chris a lot of credit for my intellectual growth. And that’s why it’s really embarrassing. [00:30:04.12] I don’t know why it’s embarrassing but it is. Maybe it’s like asking a child to I don’t know.

THERAPIST: It’s like you feel small.

CLIENT: Yeah. I feel very small, I feel like, because I didn’t do all of this myself. He listens to so much better music than me. And that really scares you, freaks me out. So this weekend I spent with this other guy and I just I mean I’m having a good time with him and his friends, but then I’m checking my phone and Chris is posting stuff on Facebook and I’m like he’s lonely and I feel guilty about that. [00:31:03.23] But then I’m like, you know, I am so scared of losing that.

THERAPIST: Of losing Chris?

CLIENT: Yeah, of his of the intellectual stimulation I get from him. I’m more afraid of losing that. I don’t know what I’m more afraid of losing, that or the life we have [inaudible] together. Or had together. I think how am I going to I feel like I’m just going to stop growing intellectually without him, even though I’m in school, even though I have teachers, even though I know where the going gets tough from.

THERAPIST: It’s like you feel you’re a kid who needs a parent. [00:32:04.00]

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah, I don’t want to give my parent up. I could give up sex; I don’t think I can give up my parent. Are we done? Do you think I should give up my parent if I have to become an adult?

THERAPIST: Who’s a parent in your mind?

CLIENT: He shouldn’t have been, huh, if our relationship was to work out. No?

THERAPIST: Am I supposed to be the parent now? [00:33:05.00]

CLIENT: You’re just an expert.

THERAPIST: But maybe I have confidence that you can hear these things out.

CLIENT: Yeah, I suppose. It’s weird. So I’m hanging out with this guy’s friends. I cooked them dinner and it was and we were drunk, so maybe that had something to do with it, but it was like such a level playing field I found. And obviously the more level playing field is also my feeling but I felt like it felt kind of calm and with it and I was myself, my boisterous opinionated self. [00:34:09.19] But I didn’t feel uneasy, which is what I feel most of the time, or all the time with Chris’s friends, because they tend to be academics, professors or post docs. [ph] Maybe it’s not just me feeling small but it’s also the aura that they have. [inaudible] it’s just the dynamic. But I guess I’m just bringing this up just because [inaudible] saying that I seek out higher ground. I don’t know if that’s the way of putting it. But seeking people who have more or seeking people who put you down [inaudible].

THERAPIST: Do you feel they put you down? [00:35:08.21]

CLIENT: Hmm?

THERAPIST: Do you feel they put you down?

CLIENT: Or I feel put down. I don’t know if they do it or if it’s me. Maybe it’s mutual. Maybe it’s in some context it’s mutual but in some context it’s just me, I’m feeling. But that’s what I mean. That’s the uneasiness. Yeah, I’m having a good time with these people who are probably my age and they’re they have more money, but hey, [ph] I don’t feel as threatened by them having more money as I feel threatened by people who have more knowledge, who have more purpose. So I’m having a good time but then at the end of the evening the thought that there are these groups out there, or even thought that I could’ve been with Chris that night and cooked for his friends. [00:36:04.14] And what was my loss that evening? The all the great intellectual conversations that I missed out on and I’m going to keep missing out on if I’m not with him and I’m with someone who’s not intellectual. Does that make sense?

THERAPIST: Does it make sense how you’re thinking about it?

CLIENT: Yeah. Am I still thinking in terms of categories and strict [inaudible] categories.

THERAPIST: I keep wanting to say, what do you think? Who cares what I think.

CLIENT: Do we have time?

THERAPIST: Yeah. You’re sort of aware of the clock time.

CLIENT: I’m always [ph]. I don’t know really [inaudible] this out [ph]. I really do. [00:37:08.22]

THERAPIST: What is this?

CLIENT: This thing that I feel. I’m feeling cranky about it because I’ve been struggling with it for a while now. Even like the I think I realized this the morning after the gathering. It was like what were you guys talking about? I have no idea. You guys were so inarticulate. I said that to this guy. And he didn’t take it personally, I think, but I was just thinking yeah, these guys are so much fun and they didn’t put me down and we were just chilling. And I think we were trying to talk about Indian cities and the mentality of people there, but these guys not being intellectuals or not having done hard thinking about their experiences, this was what it was. [00:38:24.09] But if I compare it to any other evening I’ve had with Chris and his friends, the intellectual quotient [ph] of that conversation is so high I come away with learning so much. I feel threatened, I feel kind of small, but I come away with knowledge that I feel like I could use, I could write about. And so just in terms of that, just plainly, very selfishly thinking of wanting to be a writer and wanting to have wanting intellectual stimulation, valuing that over everything else, I feel very scared. [00:39:11.23] I feel lost now. It’s not that I will never be a part of those of that group. It’s just what I identify myself with and having been and realizing that okay, hanging out with people who know way more than me all the time maybe is having a negative psychological impact on me, making me feel less confident about myself, even though it shouldn’t. But it has. Is that a fair statement that it has or I feel like it is. I mean yeah, that’s all, figuring this piece out. [00:40:09.09]

THERAPIST: It’s a catch-22 because if I don’t say anything it seems like you feel anxious and maybe that I’m not present in some way, but if I do say something, like give you the answer answer, that somehow I’m undermining your ability to feel that you can think for yourself.

CLIENT: Yeah. I put you in a catch-22.

THERAPIST: It wasn’t a complaint.

CLIENT: Okay.

THERAPIST: Seeing these “intellectuals” as on a higher plain is your only construction. [00:41:06.09]

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) And I’m aware of how that construction happened. I hadn’t I wasn’t a part of that world. I desperately wanted to be a part of that world. And I was a part. And then I became a part of that world and that’s all that I knew. But I never forgot that I came from nothing, or like I didn’t come from a background that they did. Although they all have very different backgrounds.

THERAPIST: I’m sure. You tend to sort of homogenize people, and then when you think about it, they seem far less homogenous.

CLIENT: Yeah, I should be aware of that. [00:42:02.27]

THERAPIST: Well it’s a way of maintaining this feeling of being an outsider.

CLIENT: Yeah. I have to work on that. I remember so clearly you saying it sounds like you said it sounds like this guy really wants you, and that really freaked me out when you said that because I cling so steadfastly to my position of an outsider that it really messes with my head when I realize that people want me in. I have to work on that. Even Chris, he will say he will agree that he wants me in. [00:43:00.11] He might not know how to say it or show it. In spite of his mom being as harsh as she is, even she would say that she wants me in. (pause) This will take we’ll have to we should talk about this on Wednesday, the origins of my feeling like an outsider.

THERAPIST: That is part of the story of what you’re describing [inaudible] room with all these kids who had more money. [00:44:05.23]

CLIENT: Mm-hm. That really that’s where it started I’m sure. I wasn’t aware of being an outsider before that. There was no inside or outside, there was just an inside I think. It was just me and my mom. (pause) Yeah, I guess just like the previous thing about intellectuals versus nonintellectuals. I don’t know if it’s part of my identity or what it is that I yeah, that’s what I’m like grappling with. [00:45:02.18] Should I distance myself from them so I can do my own thinking and feel more confident, or am I running away from them because I’ve been hurt or but then I shouldn’t be running away. I should hold my ground because and face my fears.

THERAPIST: [inaudible] we’re going to need to stop. I’ll see you Wednesday.

CLIENT: Okay, see you.

THERAPIST: Great.

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